Are Your Services Stronger Than Your Brand?

October 24, 2013

How is your personal brand holding up in the noisy and competitive marketplace?

Is it still as fresh and distinctive as it was when you launched it? After several years, most brands start to look tired and outdated. The colors and artwork that were stylish when they were introduced eventually take on the appearance of relics from the past.

What about your brand promise? Does it promise clients the benefits that your services deliver today? Or is it a reminder of how you used to help clients?

Few of us deliver our services the same way we did 5 or 10 years ago. As a result of a continuously changing market, clients need and want different kinds of help from us. In response, most of modify our services and how we satisfy clients.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that even though we continue to enhance and upgrade our services to maintain and perhaps increase client satisfaction, these improvements are not always reflected in our personal brands.

As a result, our services can be stronger than our brands. That’s good for existing clients, but not so good for your marketing.

If you haven’t thought about your brand recently, maybe it’s time to evaluate how strong your brand really is. Here are some questions to get you started.

What are you and your firm best known for?

Relative to the competition,

How strong is your personal and professional reputation?

How visible are you in your market?

The best and most helpful answers come from the market. Ask the same questions of clients, contacts and others who might have an opinion on your brand.

You might not like all the answers you hear. But if you don’t know there’s a problem, how are you going to fix it?